Rev Stan's film blog

Fifteen minute review: The Deep Blue Sea

Based on a Terrence Rattigan play (one I haven't seen) The Deep Blue Sea is about a woman stuck between choosing to follow her heart or her head.

The film starts with Hester (Rachel Weisz) trying to kill herself and then back tracks to how she got to that point of utter despair.

She is married to a loving but proper High Court Judge William (Simon Russell Beale) but falls passionately in love with former second world war fighter pilot Freddie (Tom Hiddleston). Theirs is a physical relationship, the antithesis of her marriage but Freddie struggles with the intensity of the emotion Hester feels for him.

Director Terence Davies has given the film the feel of an old movie which is fitting for the setting to a point. He also allows the actors room to act without reams of dialogue which always scores points with me. And the performances are appropriately big but in such an understated way, if that makes any sense at all. I particularly enjoyed seeing the wonderful SRB up on the big screen, it feels like a real treat.

However there was something in it that just occasionally pushed it into melodrama territory for me. I don't think the music helped with its blistering violins and neither did the sepia, old movie tones. And, for the first time I sat in a cinema wishing I could see it one stage. 

It going to get 70% from me on IMDb it's got 61% but no Metacritic score as yet. On Rotten Tomatoes it's got 88% from critics and 52% of visitors to the site have given it three and a half stars or more.

 

Colin Morgan turns junkie in Parked (or whoops the post I forgot to publish)

Finally got to see Parked last weekend and must admit I was feeling slightly 'meh' about it for the first 20 minutes. It seemed to be heading dangerously one-way down cliche cul-de-sac but thank goodness it managed to find a way out.

It's basically about two men who have ended up living in their cars and form an unlikely friendship. Ok I can feel some of you cringing. There is a little bit more to it than that.

Colm Meaney plays Fred who has returned to Ireland after drifting from job to job in England. He is stuck in a housing catch 22. He can't go on the waiting list for social housing unless he has a permanent abode and he can't get a permanent abode until he gets social housing. 

Little Colin Morgan plays Cathal (Cal) who's left or been chucked out of his father's house after his mother died. He's a heroine addict who owes money to his dealer.

Cal, is an experienced car-dweller and sort of takes Fred under his wing, showing where he can shower and helping him with the welfare department. Fred meanwhile becomes a protective friend, a genuine friend among Cal's associates of smack-heads and dealers.

There is a little romance thrown in as Fred catches the eye of a woman he meets at the swimming baths and Cal helps engineer a meeting.

Meaney and Morgan both put in great, contrasting performances the former understated and the latter all twitches and ticks. It's great to see Colin stretching his acting muscles outside Merlin. 

Parked is a nice film delicately balancing the twee with some of the more brutal reality of drugs and homelessness which saves the day. It doesn't go down the cul de sac which is also a saving grace. It's not going to win any awards from me but is a nicely moving film.

I'm going to give it 70% on IMDB it has 67% from users and on Rotten Tomatoes is has got an audience rating of 88%. No critics consensus yet.

 

The Mission Impossible IV review

Now I don't know if I've actually seen all the preceding Mission Impossible films and I'm not sure why I decided to go and see this today, but I'm glad I did because I really quite enjoyed it.

I don't think it matters there are gaps in your knowledge of the series, you just need to know that Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is a US covert agent working for and organisation called the IMF, which isn't the International Monetary Fund apparently ;0). After that it's a buckle up and enjoy the ride film. 

This one is about a nasty man trying to start a nuclear war and Hunt and his team trying to stop him. More than that it's best not to think about too much as you will start to see the plot holes and this is definitely a film that is more about action and thrills. And the action and thrills are very well done. 

There are plenty of tense, nail-biting moments and, for someone like me who is terrified of heights, a sweaty palms, hyper-ventilating moments. (Cruise does a lot of the stunts including the tall building stuff which I think adds to the thrill).

The fights are highly dramatic and noisy, in a crunch and thud kind of way, which actually had me wincing and a few (intentional) laugh out loud moments, mainly courtesy of Simon Pegg as the techie guy in the field for the first time.

All of which means it had me hooked, in fact I haven't actually commented at the screen that much in a movie for a while* albeit mainly expletives around scenes of jumping off tall buildings.

It's a longish film at over two hours but only my bladder noticed but there are obvious in between-action interludes during which you can slip out for a comfort break and return without having missed anything vital or too exciting.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, to give it its official title (and punctuation), is a great popcorn movie and definitely worth popping out to see on a big screen over the festive season. It had me humming the theme tune all the way home and it's getting a Stan rating of 80%. On IMDb it's got 79% with a Metacritic score of 74%. On Rotten Tomatoes it's got 93% with 84% of audiences rating it three and a half stars or more.

*It's OK there was no one sitting anywhere near me that I could disturb.

 

Fifteen minute review: Sherlock Holmes Game of Shadows

Loved the first Sherlock Holmes movie for its cheeky fun and stylish action. There were gadgets galore and plenty of suspense. And it was an engaging and fun story.

On the posters for Game of Shadows it claims to be more fun, bigger and better, or words along those lines but it isn't. 

Firstly the plot is a little meandering and I'm not sure I cared enough, partly because I don't think the relationship between Holmes and Watson, which is central, is sufficiently re-established.

Robert Downey Jnr is doing the cheeky Holmes with bells on but the chimes just don't ring as joyfully as the first film. I suppose it is the Captain Jack Sparrow-syndrome. More of the same starts to wear a little thin after a while.

That isn't to say Game of Shadows isn't enjoyable. It's great to see Stephen Fry as Mycroft (and there is a lot of him to see). Jared Harris is also superb as the calmly evil Moriaty (he makes Holmes look like a bit of a buffoon at times).

It is quite fun, there is some nice tying up of plot points at the end, there are gadgets and fights and and the slow-mo action sequences but because it's all been done before it doesn't quite have the same wow-factor as the first film. (And we've since been spoilt with the BBC's rather superb Sherlock TV series.)

A pleasant enough couple of hours but I didn't walk out with a grin on my face like I did with the first film. Its going to just scrape into four star category with 60% from me. 

On IMDb it's got 78% with a Metacritic score of 49% and on Rotten Tomatoes it has a critic score of 59% and 85% of visitors gave it three and a half stars or higher.

 

15-minute review: My Week With Marilyn

Bit behind with reviews so have decided to reintroduce 15-minute reviews....

So, My Week With Marilyn is based on a true story about Colin Clark who wangles himself a job working on the set of Laurence Olivier's Prince and Showgirl film with Marilyn Monroe. 

It's got some great actors in it, KennethBranagh is naturally very good as Olivier but it doesn't seem like a role that has stretched him (maybe that's his genius?), Eddie Redmayne plays Colin and it's great to see him as lead but again it does feel like a meaty enough role for his talents.

There is a small part for Judi Dench who naturally steals all her scenes and Zoe Wanamaker can do no wrong in my eyes but the stand out performance goes to Michelle Williams as Marilyn herself. You just can't take your eyes off her, which I guess is the effect Marilyn had. 

And it's a nice story, nicely done, engaging, entertaining but aside from Michelle Williams it is just nice and isn't going stand out in the crowd of 80 or so films I've seen this year. 

I'm going to give it 60%. On IMDb it's got 75% with a Metacritic score of 65%. On Rotten Tomatoes it's got 83% from both critics and site visitors.

 

 

The beautiful but slow Hugo

Controversial, I'm sure, but I got a little bit bored during Martin Scorsese kid-flick Hugo. Don't get me wrong, in many ways it's a lovely story and it is beautifully produced, stunningly produced in fact but I kept waiting for something to happen that never did.

It is at it's heart an emotional story. Hugo (Asa Butterfield) is orphaned and 'adopted' by nasty uncle who puts him to work, doing his job of winding all the clocks in a busy Paris station then absents himself. 

Left to his own devices Hugo, when he isn't winding the clocks, works on a project he started with his Dad to mend an automaton. This involves trying to steal bits of clockwork from a toy stall in the station and avoid being picked up by the station manager and his ferocious doberman.

Along the way he befriends Isabelle (Chloe Moretz), the goddaughter of the toy stall owner, who decides to help him.

And there are some real bottom lip trembling moments (and yes I did cry once) and there are a plethora of great performances - some barely more than cameos from some of the British acting elite (Ben Kingsley, Richard Griffiths, Frances de la Tour, Helen McCrory, Christopher Lee...) but ultimately the whole film lacked pace and was a little long.

A lot of work obviously went into creating the station world and it is beautiful, intriguing and exciting but felt underused. But then what do I know? Everyone else seems to think it's the best thing since sliced bread.

I'm going to give it 65%. On IMDb it's got 83% with the same Metacritic score. On Rotten Tomatoes it's got 94% from critics and 84% of site visitors have given it three and a half stars out of five or higher.

The sobering and haunting Dreams of a Life

Don't normally go for documentaries at the cinema but I'm glad I did because Dreams of Life is really very good, the sort of film that you have to see with someone because there is so much to talk about afterwards.

It's about Joyce Carol Vincent who, at the age of 38, was found dead in her north London bedsit by bailiffs. Her body had lain undisturbed for three years. Beside her were wrapped Christmas presents.

In the film friends and ex-boyfriends talk about the Joyce they knew and her life as they perceived it. The interviews are interspersed with photo's, clippings from the press and the journalist's investigative notes. There are also scenes re-enacted by an actress.

What soon becomes obvious is even those close to her didn't really know her as well as they thought. Nonetheless, this isn't the sort of woman who's three year absence you could imagine going unoticed. She wasn't a loner or a drinker or on drugs. She was well liked and thought of uniformly as a nice person, good-looking and not short of attention. It is probably the most disturbing aspect of the whole story. 

She had good jobs and a string of nice boyfriends - one of whom worked in the music industry which resulted in her meeting a clutch of famous names from the 80s. She even met Nelson Mandela and there is a poignant clip of her in a crowd of people listening to him speak.

It is an intriguing and very sad tale. There are lots of questions that remain unanswered which will haunt you. 

Definitely worth seeing and I'm going to give it 80%. It's got 78% on IMDb (no Metacritic score) and 86% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and 100% of site visitors have given it 3.5 stars out of five or above.